Author: Ryan Kairer

Engadget has spied a new FCC recordset containing some details on a yet to be announced Verzion branded Palm Pixi. The FCC reports go on to show a new CDMA based Pixi variant with the addition of WiFI to the standard feature set. The reports were originally issued on November 12th and mostly contain various technical analysts and related reports. Device photos and technical schematics have been withheld for the time being. The newly approved Pixi carries a model number of P121EWW, with the FCC ID of 08F-PIXEW.

With this regulatory hurdle out of the way, the path is now set for Verizon to begin offering its first webOS based device sometime in early 2010. The company previously made its intentions well known with a number of choice quotes from VZW’s CEO and even big red’s Twitter account gave some kind of confirmation it would at least offer the Palm Pre.

Sprint has begun to notify customers of an impending change to their general terms and conditions customer agreement. The changes will implement an increase in certain regulatory fees beginning Jan 1st, 2010. While the stated changes are minor, (the regulatory charge will increase to $0.40/line), the alteration of terms may be sufficient enough to qualify as a “material adverse change” which would essentially allow current customers to cancel their Sprint contract without having to incur the standard “Early Termination Fee.”

Sprint’s terms and conditions allow customers to terminate their contract in response to a materially adverse change we make to the Agreement. Customers will have a 30 day window from Jan 1st in which they can cancel service without incurring their pro-rated ETF. The company has made similar moves in the past two years as well. UCAN.org provides a handy guide and a sample phone script for use when dealing with company agents.

There were more than 450 million mobile Internet users worldwide in 2009, a number that is expected to more than double by the end of 2013. Driven by the popularity and affordability of mobile phones, smartphones, and other wireless devices, IDC’s Worldwide Digital Marketplace Model and Forecast expects the number of mobile devices accessing the Internet to surpass the one billion mark over the next four years.

“The number of mobile devices with Internet access has simply exploded over the last several years,” said John Gantz, chief research officer at IDC. “With a wealth of information and services available from almost anywhere, Internet-connected mobile devices are reshaping the way we go about our personal and professional lives. With an explosion in applications for mobile devices underway, the next several years will witness another sea change in the way users interact with the Internet and further blur the lines between personal and professional.”

Palm OS Garnet holdouts have another option for running classic Palm OS apps on fully equipped modern hardware that is shipping today.

Nokia’s new N900 Maemo 5 powered smartphone is now capable of running Access’ Garnet VM emulator. While it is still officially unsupported at this time, an install is possible with a little bit of command line tinkering.

Access Garnet VM has traditionally been aimed at Nokia’s maemo powered Internet tablets. However the latest update will work on N900 without many complaints, the trick is simply getting it to install.

A new class action lawsuit has been filed against Palm Inc. and Sprint in the U.S. District court over issues with the webOS backup system. The suit alleges that Palm Pre customers have unnecessarily suffered catastrophic data loss including their contacts, calendars and other personal information as a result of failed backups.

In this specific case a Palm Pre customer, Jason Standiford, exchanged his phone under warranty at a local Sprint store. Mr. Standiford had already gone through three previous warranty exchanges for his Pre due to various hardware issues. To summarize, on his fourth exchange a Sprint store clerk “permanently deleted” his only backup available and the Palm profile restoration subsequently failed to recover a majority of Standiford’s data. After many trials, it took three weeks for a Palm technician to partially restore some of his missing records.